“That’s a smart move for your company” said Dries Buytaert, the founder of Drupal, after I told him Itomic will be opening up a UK office this year.
I thought that I had a good understanding of what Drupal was all about before heading off to the “DrupalDownunder” Conference in Brisbane, but I was mistaken. I believed Drupal was all about providing an open source content management solution: Drupal is an open source CMS, but is all about the Drupal community that surrounds the product.
As a non-technical member of our Drupal production team, I was hopeful that I would learn a lot from the conference and I did, but the recurring feeling of community throughout the weekend was very strong.
It is easy to see that the Drupal Communities ethos is lead from the top with Dries Buytaert, Josh Koenig among others travelling across the pond to the conference and reinforcing the credibility of the event itself.
The approachability of the keynote speakers was great too – I could not imagine Bill Gates meeting and greeting at a Microsoft Conference in the same way Dries did.
It is interesting to see how our own organisation is viewed by the community. At one session Itomic was mentioned by one of the speakers with regards to work we had done for the Victorian Government. It was great to see that the speaker (who was from another Drupal Provider) talked about us and other Drupal providers in a positive way, in a way that says Drupal Competition is good Competition. Again that feeling of been part of a community came through.
I do not profess to have understood everything at the conference, and as I ponder the meaning of my hand written note that says “Body of CCK field group” I realise that I will not be building a Document Management System any time soon. However, I do know that Itomic will find ways to be a positive impact in the Drupal Community.